French artist living inside a rock surrounded by excrement: ‘I feel completely at ease’

Abraham Poincheval is attempting to survive inside a 12-tonne boulder inside a Paris art museum for a week

An artist entombed inside a 12-tonne rock for nearly three days has described the experience as like tripping, insisting he would stick it out for a week.

Speaking through a crack in the limestone boulder late on Friday, Abraham Poincheval said he had been buoyed by how his performance has got into peoples heads.

I am travelling in this rock without moving, like an astronaut, he said.

The artist, who is having store his own excrement around him, made headlines worldwide when the two halves of the rock closed around him on Wednesday at Pariss Palais de Tokyo art museum.

Poincheval, 44, had carved out a hole inside the rock in his own image, just big enough for him to sit up in, with a niche to hold supplies of water, soup and dried meat.

People seem to be very touched. They come and talk into the crack, read poetry to me, or tell me about their nightmares or their dreams, he said.

They are not so much talking to me, I think, as to the stone. I am very happy that the stone has got into their heads.

If he survives the ordeal, the performance artist who has previously spent a fortnight sewn-up inside a stuffed bear, will attempt to become a human hen and hatch a dozen eggs by sitting on them for weeks on end.